Wreckage
by Gilly.Flowers
Summary: despite his growing sense of shrinking, he smiled back - hoping the gallant and heroic adventures of princes and woodsmen, and even lost children, would fill his dreams with needed happiness - fall in servitude by her sweet voice - A terribly thunderstorm raged with grey contempt and blue acidity - Drown in the quiet. ((Name sucks but bare with it until further inspiration, bud))
1. Chapter 1

The Judge was gone. His vile blood dripped down in ravines and scattered roads, a maze of red trickling and staining down the face and body of the demon of retribution. Peace befell the crimson-drenched room, the window of spilt, coveted rubies showing nothing but the quiet, empty sky. The world seemed to sink into slumber with the gurgling mess of ripped flesh and ripped sinews, dropping and slipping away as the corpse of a pious vulture plummets from the heights of its glory to the stone-cold sewers. The Judge was dead.

His friend, his triumphant accomplice and his superior beauty was shining as it never had. It bathed as he bathed in the wine of salvation, laying on the gateway to human-induced hell, sleeping on a throne with a blanket of vengeance to keep it warm in its final moments alive.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Drown in the quiet. Drown in this peace.

Something creaked behind the hunched form of a creature in drowsy completion. Like a standing wolf, a snake with bending and stepping legs, he closed in on the eyes that watched in placidity one wouldn't suspect from a witness of murder. It was a boy with feminine softness; a sailor with girlish cheeks and tender lips. Sweeney's fingers fill with a rough, worn collar, and he jerked the poor, nosy, caught lad out of the chest he tried to hide in.

The son's hat hit the window behind his head in the duration to Sweeney's shaking, sliding into the space between the glass and the lid to the chest.

"Come for a -" His world flipped on itself.

Turns out, the son was a daughter.

The rough, worn collar dropped from his hand, his mask of gore just barely concealing the pasty white canvas it smeared and unpurified as it grew whiter and whiter.

Those eyes spoke the volume of her history; brown, just as brown as those of a dead man. She was scared, trembling in her trousers, her wide murky ponds flickering down and up and along the streams that cavern his face. She only managed to remove the faltering monster from her view a millisecond, when a woman screamed in the nearby distance and her head jerked on instinct.

His little dove, his lamb, his sweet, his baby. The twisting sense of guilt, of pain, of victory, warred for over-all importance in his feeble stomach, and he could feel himself quivering with the urge to hurl. Then the spell she casted unintentionally subdued, her memorabilia diamonds leaving and cutting short their surprise contact. A high-pitched scream echoed through his bones, shaking out the broken whisper that had been building like a storm in his closed throat.

"Johanna." Sweeney's skin began to feel heavy and thick with blood, and his eyelids were crusty from the drying residue of the Judge's comeuppance. "I'm sorry," For everything.

The cellar reeked of burning humanity, the stones seemed to churn with glee as the rancid smoke gave a grey curtain for the displeasure of his eyes and his nose. Mrs. Lovett turned fast on her heels, a startled peep popping through the faint fog. She closed the distance between them, wiping her hands off on her skirts.

"All done in 'ere, Mr. T. Th' bodies are all gone, not one trace 's left. Where's Ant'ony? Mr. T, wassa mat'er? Aren't you ready to -"

"Why did you scream?" Desperate emotions were held back by his sneering teeth and his agitated head, the brief panic he felt earlier, as he descended pairs of stairs, cowered in locked away cages.

She looked puzzled for a second, and he wanted to throttle her for her astonishing asininity. But ever quickly she 'ooh'ed in comprehension, and gave a curt dismissive wave. "Turpin was clutchin' onto the end o' me dress, but as you can smell, 'e's dead _for sure_, now."

Mrs. Lovett grabbed the crook in his arm, and she dragged him up to the main level of her establishment, the bakehouse door slamming shut, for the last time, behind them.

* * *

"I remember at one port an old fisherman told me a story of a great pirate – oh, I forgot his name, but he was great." Anthony's gentle words drifted across the cabin, wispy as he was trying to whisper and save the other ship inmates from a rude awakening, but at the same time trying to be sufficiently heard.

Johanna smiled, her hands pillowing her ear and her head facing Anthony's. Despite the good 6 feet or so between them, they hardly noticed the space separating them, feeling as if they could reach out a hand and caress the other's cheek, as if they were laying a breath away.

"And why was he so great?" She asked in mock excitement that wasn't all that fake. His lips spread in a silent laugh.

"His story is a tragic one, and if you cry we all know I'll cry, so I'll try and be as elusive as possible. I-if that's okay." He waited for her consent, then took a breath and continued thusly, "The ship he captained had a mutinous crew, and they left him on an island to die. But some of the men liked him, respected him, they would say. And in pity they left him a gun with a single bullet, so if he ever desired too, he could shoot himself and end the nightmare of everlasting sunlight."

Johanna gaped in horror, her hand sliding out from under her head to cover her mouth.

"Wait, that's not why he's so famous." Anthony resumed hurriedly, "You see, after a fortnight or something, he _escaped_ the island - "

"How?!" Johanna squawked suddenly, full of childish awe.

"- by wadding out into the sea 'til it was just touching his waist and waiting for two days and one night. Then, with all sorts, o-or so they say, of sea creatures about and sticking to him, he grabbed and tied two giant sea turtles together – great grandfather ones, like you've never seen – and made a raft of a sort to voyage the ocean. It wasn't two weeks later that he washed up on the shores of the Caribbean to wreak vengeance on the man who turned his crew on him."

Johanna giggled lightly, her eyes shimmering with wonder as she turned onto her back, staring up at the darkened ceiling. Suddenly her amazement dropped away like an outer skin, and looking back at the young sailor she narrowed her pretty eyes in suspicion.

"Where did he get the rope?"

Anthony paused, his eyebrows furrowing. "The rope?"

"_To tie the turtles_ – where did he get the rope, Ant'ony?"

Anthony looked dumbfounded, as he couldn't seem to recount if he'd ever been told – where _had_ the great pirate gotten the rope?!

* * *

London shone, across an eternity of lugubriously black, growling waves, with the flickering wet lights of innumerable oil lamps and by the reflections of stars on the windows of the tallest buildings. The ship rolled like a nostalgic hug against a mother's breast, and the wind was refreshingly biting when it swept back Mrs. Lovett's curls off of her hot cheeks.

"I'm goin' to miss Fleet Street." Toby said, his words turning to fog, watching with teary eyes as The Bountiful slipped farther and farther through the water and the wintery mist. Snow began to fall then, dissolving into the murky sea and dancing in a waltz and with the music missing that exhilarated night. Everything was just getting calm in the eerie quiet, their heavy, pounding hearts just now starting to slow back to normality.

Mrs. Lovett drew her coat tighter around herself, then wrapped a secure arm along Toby's shaky shoulders. She pressed a kiss to his temple, lingering in thought as she played with the hair behind his ears. "Me too, darlin'," She murmured finally, and the two adoptive family members looked up and down at one another.

Just as she went to wipe the budding curls of tears from his eyes, fingers grazed her and she was turned away from the shivering lad. Mrs. Lovett lifted her head, her chin getting attacked by the hungry thorns of a winter breeze, her startled face tilting as Sweeney dropped his hand from her arm.

"It's freezing out 'ere. Get your boy and come inside." He muttered somewhat begrudgingly, as if he hated that he was out there, demanding her to join him where it wasn't below zero. Then he left.

Mrs. Lovett turned back to Toby and grabbed his hand, smiling reassuringly at him and squeezing his little palm in hers. His fingers were ice cold. Snow lay scattered on his head, sticking for their lives on his flyaway mop. Beads of salted water clung to his eyelashes, the lights of the vanishing city igniting the curtain of swaying, thickening flakes of chalk.

But despite his growing sense of shrinking, he smiled back, letting his mum lead him away from the edge of the ship that was carrying him away from all he knew.

* * *

One evening Toby was sword-fighting with sailors who were hardly working, their games set in areas out of the way of those who were working hard. His weapon of choice was a piece of driftwood held in his callused palms with excessive pride, as if it truly were a diamond-studded silver blade, and he a courageous prince.

Oh see how Tobias the Prince slayed the ugliest trolls as they attempt to hinder his crossing of a bridge; how he carved out the evil hearts of werewolves, who try to eat him and feeble old ladies and too how he beheaded the mighty dragon that breathes out Hell from deep within its scorched lungs, and who is a notoriously greedy reptilian – the dragon that dared to wish to stop Tobias the Knight from saving his princess. See there, what a silly sceptical these monsters make of themselves before Tobias the Good!

"Watch me, mum!"

"Oh - I wish I could love, but 'm far too busy. Maybe next time." Tobias the Fearless looked crestfallen, having failed to gain his mother's attention, but he was quick to deem it all well in itself when she tossed him a fresh cookie from her pile before she vanished into the ship. Tobias the All-Conquering would have been too distracted from defeating the thunderous Sasquatch if there were sweets nearby to clog his senses with its treacherous pleasantness.

"Halt, Big of thy Foot!" He bellowed, then made a _swoosh_ing noise through a mouthful of crumpled crumbs, sweeping his make-shift armament slowly enough for his playmate to counterattack but fast enough to still feel cool.

* * *

'"_Spare me your lamentations," said the old woman; "they are of no avail_."'

A single flame flickered at the tip top of a dying candle. In the cabin room the three shared, two cots rested against opposite walls and there was a small circular window that gave the view to only the constancy of the erupting volcanoes of seas that battered the ship's great walls. Sweeney lay sound asleep on one of the cots, his whip marks peeking out of his threadbare quilt and his black forest of hair spread out on the pillow.

"Do th' two children escape the witch, mum? _Do they_?"

"Hush Toby, you'll wake Mr. T up with yer impatience." Mrs. Lovett warned, glancing warily over to the barber's sleeping form in the dark before she held her boy closer to her side, his arm pressed against her ribs, and she continued to read out, quietly, from the large, homely book of fairy tales that sat open in her lap.

For hours into the night, when neither pie maker nor shop boy could catch a wink of sleep, she would grab a book of Toby's choosing and she'd read to him because he couldn't read to her. They never finished whatever chapter they happened themselves upon, for by her soothing voice Toby would be lulled to rest, and Mrs. Lovett was always thankful when he managed to shut his eyes. The poor kid wasn't used to the churning and rocking of the ocean, especially here, where they were at their most disorientating.

But sometimes, because she liked the story and despite the slumbering boy's head drooling on her leg, she would continue her reading, hoping the gallant and heroic adventures of princes and woodsmen, and even lost children, would fill his dreams with needed happiness.

And sometimes, if he liked the story and despite her lack of knowledge, a very still barber would lay on his side, his eyes closed but his ears open to her breathless storytelling.

* * *

At the tail of The Bountiful was where he found her. With her coat sliding down her back, exposing her rich pink dress and fair hair, with her leaning glumly against the thick wooden railing and the moon light in her oceanic eyes, was how he found her.

He pulled her jacket back up, standing beside her and watching her thoughtful expression morph to one of tepid acceptance. He murmured with slight hesitation, "Johanna, please be wary of the cold. I would – would die if you were to catch your death out here, now that I've finally had you for myself."

Johanna turned her face to him, her mask immediately that of the aggressive passivity he was so used to by now. "But Ant'ony," She whispered, her vague voice then becoming embroidered with a flower of strength that came from her surly heart. "You haven't had me – you don't even know if you ever will."

Before he could stutter out an inquiry for elaboration, she looked away from his sunken-in-ness, to the more interesting sliding seas. She continued with less vigor, "I don't even know if I still want to be had… After everything I've escaped from… How could you expect me?"

Realization dawned on his daft-by-romance head, and past a stilled moment he reached out and grasped her bare, cold hand; the faintest flicker of a smile graced her chapped lips, and she leaned into him, seeking the warmth of his hope.

"I love you very much, Johanna."

* * *

Her forehead glistened with perspiration and her hair stuck to the back of her neck. The kitchen she and only she occupied was stifling, the air thick and eating away at the inadequate supply of oxygen before she could drink it into her bursting blue lungs.

The iron door to the oven slammed, and Mrs. Lovett dumped onto the counter a tray of scrumptious cookies, the chocolate chips melted and deviously tempting. Mrs. Lovett sighed mightily into her deserted workspace, chucking off her wool mittens.

Never again, she vowed with sweat dripping down past her ears and her dress uncomfortably snug. Curse her and her sudden surge of purpose.

Mrs. Lovett had lost count of the weeks they've been stuck on this dismal ship, and as each day ticked by she felt herself become more and more so sick of her limitations.

As a consequence to her inability to be satisfied by any predicament, Mrs. Lovett tried her skilled and refined hand at what she knew best – and since Sweeney was being completely uncooperative, she was baking yummy things in hopes of luring him out of his dark corner. Mr. Todd had been sulking in their room for days, since she forced him to speak with his daughter. And to make matters worse, he refused to tell her why he was so down in the dumps when he got back.

Sugar and butter always made her feel better, so why not?

Mrs. Lovett, mindful of their initial softness, lifted the placidly steaming cookies off the hot pan, her fingertips long since lost their nerves and were practically numb for such trivialities. The ambrosial smell wafted up to splash her sticky face and with the approval came golden memories of Christmases and birthdays; her mother being simply kind and wanting especially to drag her father out of his politics, or whatever it was the dear man drowned himself in.

She thought, too, of Benjamin and Lucy Barker snaking on rare evenings, sitting in her shop and Lucy beaming at her as Ben beamed at Lucy.

She remembered, briefly of course, of a night when she made _him_ sweets and he denied them, hurling an unlit lamp in her general direction – as she liked to believe – when she persisted too ardently, and of how she was forced to wake up her poor Toby from his sleep on the settee, to eat them for her.

Insanity; she knew it was, but something was oddly different about her Sweeney. Not to say he's 'warmed up', but he, since the great ol' Judge's departure, seemed to her (for she was the only one who could notice) like a terribly sad, lost man – he was unsure of what was to be done, now.

And well, she figured sugar and butter would make him feel better. Mrs. Lovett shut the kitchen doors, the plate of cookies balanced on one palm as she trekked with resolve down the halls. She was almost happy enough to skip.

* * *

"Mrs. Lovett tells me you've wished to see me?" Sweeney asked, his jacket thrown with little attendance around himself, his hands resting awkwardly on his lap. He felt like a student sitting before his headmaster at school and knowing he was in some form of trouble. He shouldn't have waited so long to speak with her, he knows – he's been told so by a certain someone more than enough times for it to stick – but he was a coward. Sweeney Todd, the demon barber, was afraid of his own daughter, or really, he was afraid of her being disappointed.

He shuffled his feet against the floor of the ship, a creeping sadness enveloping him with a strong sense of revelation; one that amplified every time he looks upon his little girl, now a young woman. What had vengeance – however sweet it had been at the moment – solved, in the end?

Johanna bit her lip, folding and unfolding her hands ontop of the table. Sweeney had found Anthony in a quest to finally answer his child's questions, as he had been scolded for the last time by Mrs. Lovett without throwing her overboard, and somehow it all seemed to happen too quickly for the weary demon.

Here he was, sitting across his lost girl in the ship's unhygienic cafeteria.

"Yes, yes she told you the fine truth, Mr. Todd, sir." He winced at her strict formality, but her head was far too bowed for her to even hope to see the flash of emotion before it disappeared like lightning. She smoothened out her napkin. "You see, I've been thinking… About – about that night." Her pretty eyes flickered up to gauge his reaction, then dropped again once she determined that he didn't hold the subject with sensitivity. "I can't say I dislike that you – sent the Judge away, it's just that, well you know Ant'ony considers you a dear friend, and you see – it's just I don't quite understand why." Johanna looked up once again, only this time she held her gaze with, unbeknownstly, her father.

"Why what?" Sweeney rasped, willing himself to fall in servitude by her sweet voice and angelic interrogation, even as his legs tensed, eager to break free and run away.

"Why did you do it? I won't believe that what – what I saw was an act of pure friendship. And I don't mean to intrude – well yes I do, but strictly for my Ant'ony's safety, you see."

Her eyes, so alive and youthful and familiar, flashed with teenage challenge. She had at one point, leaned further into the middle of the table, speaking in a rushed, angered voice, her whole face seeming to pitch in to her words and making him realize she's been spending more time with Mrs. Lovett than he originally thought.

"People – _normal people_ – do not kill for dewy-eyed sailors and their love-interests, so what other motives and – and reasons for murder did you have, sir?" Johanna paused, and the world stopped with her, freezing in its place and he felt her ultimate question brewing like a storm in her throat. "What did Judge Turpin do to you?"

"I -" He wanted to tell her. He wanted, for once in his miserable life to tell the truth. But he couldn't. Not ever. Sweeney pushed down the sick in his mouth. "I knew your parents. I was avenging their unfortunate demise, because they – they were good, and they deserved that much."

Johanna's wrath sank out of her toes and hit the ocean floor. "You… Knew my parents?" Her voice broke. Sweeney gave a curt nod, sealing his white lips together. "Mrs. Lovett told me already what he did to them," Her eyes darkened, glazed with salty tears that she never cried. "But she never stayed on track long enough to tell me _about them_." A soft laugh escaped her, and she wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand – a crude movement she must have picked up from the bloody baker. "So. Mr. Todd, could you, perhaps, tell me what they were like when you knew them?"

How could he say no to her?

* * *

"Will Mr. Todd ever come out of his room?" Johanna tucked her gloved hands underneath her arms, a delicate frown poisoning her heavenly visage. Her voice was disheartened and barely audible, just as Mrs. Lovett remembered Lucy's being when the blonde was upset. "I'd very much like to see speak to him, Mrs. Lovett. Couldn't you...?"

A curt, incredulous snort escaped her before she could smother it with her bare hand, and Mrs. Lovett lovingly brushed golden locks off Johanna's shoulder. "Oh you silly thing, I do so feel bad f'r you. But if I were bein' anywhere near 'onest, nothin' I say will get that man to do anythin' 'e's not comfy with - _you'd_ 'ave a" She sighed, "A better chance than me."

Toby's excited yells pulled her attention away from the pouting bird, his heavy boots thunking loudly as he ran towards them. Johanna gasped in terror, her hands covering her gaped open mouth and her eyes widening dramatically. A suffocating stench jumped and buried itself into her nose, and Mrs. Lovett reeled back as some dark object was shoved in her face, slapping her cheek and leaving a slimy trail in its wake.

"Ugh, Toby what th' bloody hell _is_ that?!" She exclaimed, dragging a fist across her soiled, crawling skin. Toby drew back, trying not to laugh as he refastened his hands around the slippery, jerking thing.

"S-sorry mum! But look - some o' the sailors caught me 'ow ta fish! Well, we didn't really fish but they let me drop a hook in one of their barrels of Cod, an' I caught this beauty!" The fish took the moments of Toby's giddy retelling to throw itself from the boy's grip.

Johanna screeched, her face green, and the triplets jumped away from the sickening splat as if they feared the toothless coward would nibble at their booted toes. But instead of knowing away at pinkies, the frazzled fish flopped once, twice, then slid through a rain hole off the side of the ship.

Toby rushed to the railing, 'Oh no'ing and very nearly swinging himself over to take a dip in the icy water too. His shoulders dropped in defeat when the ship left behind a ring of bubbles, the fish having fell into the dark blue and vanished.

"Damn it! _Me first catch jus' ran away_!"

* * *

"I brought food," Mrs. Lovett sang, opening the door to her shared cabin. Usually some bus-boy would come by with meals for Sweeney, because Mrs. Lovett had fed Johanna some line of him being too sick to wiggle his nose, and she pitied the man with the last connection to her long-gone parents.

Mrs. Lovett saw that Sweeney had gotten… Visually plumper now; because he couldn't find it within himself to refuse the food from the lad who knocked with alarming endurance on his door until he answered, and since he couldn't refuse to eat it knowing it came from Johanna and her worry for him.

She rather enjoyed the meat on his bones, though it was important to say the only much she's seen of his fatty self was when he would stand up in the middle of the night, thinking the rest of the room's tenants were sound asleep, and from where she peeked beneath her blankets, she became thoroughly acquainted with his more-so pronounced hips and his delicately rounded stomach. He was simply adorable. And now here she was, feeding his chubby self once again with her speciality: sugar and butter.

Often, in these little spy-moments, she longed to hug him when he went to the full-length mirror and pinched disdainfully at his 'spare tire'. But she didn't dare move, could you imagine the trouble she'd be in?

For the first time since she entered Mrs. Lovett glanced up, and froze.

Sweeney was sitting on the edge of his cot, his sheets discarded in a semi-circle around him, and of more importance his entire, meaty chest was exposed because he'd unbuttoned his shirt for comfort.

Mrs. Lovett swallowed hard, and lifting the plate to draw his attention away from her flushing face.

* * *

Sweeney stopped his errant pacing, scowling from across the room at the pile of blankets that concealed Tobias, the Ever-Asleep. He hadn't expected the lad to stay asleep after Mrs. Lovett has silently slipped away; when Johanna was a baby it seemed she could sense in her babyish dreams when her mother or father moved a footstep away from her crib while she rested, and would let out an earth-shattering cry as a warning. One more inch and I _will _bust open your eardrums.

Toby didn't even stir. And she's been gone for hours.

He tried not to think of all the impending danger that awaited on the night-time ship – on any ship – as it did nothing to help squish his enraged anxiety – but his will power was pathetic when playing against the chaotic discursiveness in his mind. Just because they acted as heroes and lords with Toby during the day didn't mean they, who have been barren of femininity for so, so long, were as noble and right-hearted as their characters. He was terribly aware of what sort of trouble a lady of her – relative attractiveness could get mixed up in.

What could she possibly be doing at this time anyways?

Sweeney snatched his coat off a bedpost, slinked his limbs through it and flapped out the lapels. With one last withering glance at Toby, he pulled open the door and stomped out in search of the sneaky pair of breasts.

* * *

Sweeney grabbed his coat off a bedpost, slinking his limbs through as he glared at a still yapping Mrs. Lovett. Flapping out his lapels, Sweeney turned and stomped out the door, in search of a certain, girly sailor.

* * *

And then, the utmost important details (true, without sufficient detail) were these:

The biting wind as he searched for red on the ship's deck; the splash of warmth from a raging fire sitting in the crew's bar room; the stench of booze dripping from yellow teeth and on sticky countertops; then finally, Mrs. Lovett's cackling that cut through the drone of drunkard reminisces like a knife through lard.

Already he was loosening his scarf, for the heat was wicked compared to the icy breath outside, and Sweeney's panic ebbed as he looked upon a safe, very much alive Mrs. Lovett; but just as he went to move to her side, his heart stopped and his foot froze mid-step. She had leaned in, a devilish smile on her shiny face and her mischievous laughter - soaked with sex, the harlot – subduing as she rested a hand on the Bountiful captain's shoulder, who seemed to appear out of nowhere beside her.

That bitch.

Her elbow was in his crushing hand before he knew what was happening, and before he could understand the anger – the jealousy – he yanked her away and off her stool.

"Wha – _Mr. T_!" She struggled against him, and he realized abruptly she was far more intoxicated than she was letting on. He should have gotten there earlier. He should have sucked it up and left the cabin faster and prevented his pie maker from taking shots and leaning into some lowlife of a sailor.

Mrs. Lovett shook him off, gaping with incredulous irritation up at him. "What the 'ell's the mat'er with you? Get offa me, Sw – Mr. Todd, let up."

He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to kiss her, despite her pinkening complexion and her clumsy footing. He wanted to understand her, to finally give in now that the only thing that stood in his way was a drunk imbecile driven by pure and untainted lust; some foul-smelling buffoon. He wanted and more so needed to have her and to take her back.

But he couldn't kiss her. Her narrowed eyes were too focused on being focused, , her breath reeked of cheap liquor. He couldn't kiss her because her face was pink and because she was unsteady, her body swaying on her feet, even in his arms. She was too drunk to be expected to remember – or notice – the importance of his kiss. Why would he let himself fall for once, if it would do absolutely nothing?

He reached for her arm again.

"Sir, Mer" Hiccup. "Todd; th' lady – says- stop." The captain's voice tried; he'd turned around in his precarious seating and tugged at Mrs. Lovett's waist, wishing for have her company back. They, the three of them, now had the entire room's attention.

Sweeney growled, watching Mrs. Lovett look over her shoulder and then blow a kiss at the drooling captain.

Something snapped.

Something snapped and Sweeney's fist connected with the side of the idiot's eye. Then, with the stumbling, gasping baker in his clutches, Sweeney left the captain to cry in pain on the ground, ignoring the slow rumbling of the other sailors and their wavering flip-flop from acceptance to negative hollering.

The door slammed, rattling in his hinges and rousing a drowsy Toby from his sleep.

"I hate you," Mrs. Lovett hissed, crossing her arms and scowling at Sweeney. She looked like a petulant teenager upset at her father for punishing her in the midst of teenage rebellion, and her stubborn arrogance was more than enough to fuel his pissed-off fire.

"Shut up Nellie. What the fuck're you doing anyways, going out an' - "

"An' what?! I wasn't doin' nothing wrong, you sod – I was 'avin' a few drinks, _that's all_ – I'm an adult Mr. fucking T, I don't 'ave to explain shit to you - "

Sweeney's fingers clenched onto the first thing they touched, and he hurled it straight at her in a fit of contumacious furor. A pillow hit her square in the face, and nearly had her on the ground as her drunkenness dulled her reflexes. "_Just go to sleep_!"

Mrs. Lovett snarled in cresendoing agitation, her tiny hands slamming into his shoulders and forcing him back. The back of his legs hit the edge of the bed and he crumpled obediently to the weight she viciously applied to his chest, and she awkwardly straddled him to continue her beatings on his form. "No, no no no no, you fuck-'ead! No - "

Fuck it. The growl Sweeney let out was smothered when he forced Mrs. Lovett's head down by the back of her neck, and he pressed his lips against hers. A split second of defiance cracked through her body, but then the aggression melted away and she was kissing him back, ardent and slightly controlling, just as he expected from her. A soft moan slipped from her, her entire front sinking to leave no space between them, and she gripped his suspenders in white knuckled fists. She was afraid he'd snap out of this – this dream.

The butterflies in her stomach dissolved in a blink, her euphoric state crashing down to the bloody dirt of reality, her brief moment in the sunshine was shrouded in cold, cold darkness; their short and yet age-long kiss was severed; Sweeney had turned his head away from her, his hand lightly pushing her away.

She refused to cry. "Wh - wassa matter, love?" She breathed, her hot breath on his neck. His eyes averted, looking over her and across the room at – oh. Shit.

Mrs. Lovett scrambled off the grimacing barber, shoving unruly curls off her forehead and out of her wide eyes. "Oh… Shit." She whispered, looking completely sober as she turned on her heel, chewing on a fingernail. Sweeney sat up on his cot, hating the boy for picking such a horrible time to become conscious – for _living_.

"Sorry f'r wakin' you up, Toby love." Mrs. Lovett mumbled, guilt and embarrassment welled up so tightly in her she thought she'd burst if she didn't look away from the mound of pillows that were covering the lad's ears.

His back was to her and his knees bent to hit the wall, and his voice was slightly muffled when he murmured back, "I'm sorry for wakin' up m – Mrs. – mum."

* * *

Mrs. Lovett smirked, amused by the conversations held between the vastly intelligent love-birds. Anthony shook his mess of a head, his lips pierced in a manner that implicated intense thought was churning just beneath the blond veil in his eyes. A memory stirred at his next words, and she had to stop herself from gasping aloud when finally she realized the problem that the two were, together and united as a married couple ought to be (never mind the lack of actual said matrimony), stressed over.

"Yes, I suppose he could have done that, but would that hold two _alive_ turtles?" Anthony asked, and was given in response a loud and unladylike bemoan from Johanna.

"I don't know, do you _expect_ -"

"'e made rope. From th' 'air on 'is back." Mrs. Lovett peeped in, smirking evilly and winking at the dumbfounded children gaping in awe at her. Her smile dropped after their stares and hung-slack jaws remained pointed at her for far too long. "What? I don't live und'rneath a rock neither loves." Mrs. Lovett patted the bottom of her chin with the back of her hand, indicating that they ought to close their mouths, if fly-guts-alamode wasn't really want they wanted for dinner.

* * *

A terribly thunderstorm raged with grey contempt and blue acidity. Rain pelted and stripped the wood of the ship, stinging the skin of those who were courageous enough to face the hail and of those who were forced to, for the safety of the passengers. Insidious waves yearned to overcome the boat, arching up and up, curling with sickening smacks onto the flooring, shaking the walls and every now and the washing away a crewmember to be swallowed by the black ocean. Wind whipped the wet off the decks and sent them in sinister tornadoes across the Bountiful until it was cut in half by the endings of the boat or smacking against the walls of the interior. The shouts of firm commanders and those in need of assistance were shredded and eaten up until they were nothing but fragments twisting in agony through the murderous air; shrieks sounding like chirps, screams like whispers.

Anthony and Johanna were standing beside a shivering Toby. Sweeney was in the door way before them, angrily demanding a giddy, soaked Mrs. Lovett to get back inside before her teeth were reduced to blocks of ice and her health as strong as the leaves that writhed and ripped apart in the nightmare-ish weather. Her hair was flattened down like a cowering dog's ears, her breath swirled away into the rainclouds, and her jacket was darker than before, clinging to her shoulders and breasts. She looked miserable from behind, by anyone who couldn't see the grin that spread from ear to ear on her white face. She throw her hands into the warring sky, challenging the rain's ferocity, her palms up as she felt the water collect and dribble down her arm and into her sleeves.

"_Mrs. Lovett_."

The boat churned in the waves, groaning in despair as it rocked, getting beaten and battered. A huge wing of black towered in the near distance, the wind screeching in delighted taunting. Mrs. Lovett closed her eyes against the icy shower, and a hand grabbed the back of her collar, wrenching her back. They didn't make it that far before they were plunged into crushing emptiness, coldness and squeezing, and oxygenless. All of them.

The Bountiful capsized, a split of hard-workmanship cracking through the abdomen of the voyager. And it sunk, disappearing from the hateful eye of the storm, disappearing from existence and taking everything but wind and rain with it. And…

* * *

Anthony wrestled with the ropes anchoring the Bountiful on port, his teeth bared in pain as he jerked and pulled at the knots. Johanna stood nearby, her hands folded together in front of her and her jacket flapping in a breeze that strengthened and slacked according to its own momentary preference. It's been an hour since Anthony dropped off and picked up Johanna at Sweeney Todd's, and she hasn't said a word since.

He straightened up from the half-untied rope, shoving his numb hands into the pockets of his trousers and stepping over to Johanna. "I'm sorry we 'ave to go so far away from London, but -"

She shook her head rapidly, her wide eyes snapping up to his. "No. No it's fine Ant'ony. I want to go as far away from here as possible."

Then, before the sailor could lean in and kiss the blonde bird on her paled cheek, a carriage rumbled to a skidded stop outside the walls of London's port. The door, after a suspended pause, opened slowly, heeled boots slipped out, and then Mrs. Lovett appeared from behind the curtained barrier. She slammed the door and rapped three times on the ornamented walls, her back turned when the driver snapped he reigns and the horses trotted off. On the other side, no longer obscured by the carriage stood a shivering Toby and a very clean Sweeney Todd.

Mrs. Lovett looked beyond relieved to see that Johanna and Anthony and the Bountiful had not yet left, and the three of them hurried over to where the to-be-wedded stood, holding each other.

Johanna lifted her head, her cold, murky eyes fastening onto those of Todd's. This – _that_ – was the man she's heard so much of, here's the man whom murdered before her eyes and whom very nearly came close to murdering her as well.

Here was the man – a monster, a man, did it matter now? - who gave her a life to live with her dear Anthony. He saved her from Turpin's malevolent and lusty claws.

Johanna nodded her head in a quick, sharp movement at the barber, her shoulders sinking with a heaviness that reviled the Bountiful's. The group, forever bond by history and by blood and by love, boarded the boat and set out for happier memories.

* * *

And the water was cold. She sank into the blue-black depths, sinking and sinking and screaming.

* * *

**A.N. _AND THE EVERYONE YOU LOVE DIES. _**

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**. (Oh, what's this?)**

**Welcome to the bottom, if you've made it.**

**But just so you know I'm kidding with all the death up there, I'd never... Well... Nevermind, now listen my fellow Ozians (even though some of you might not be Ozians, in which case shush my loves and listen too) stop you hysterics, this is my newest storyplot C: No one dies - no one important, anyways, not yet - so it's all good. Now, umm, as you've seen up there^ the boat's destroyed and oh no, what's gonna happen? Well, idk yet (just kidding, I do, I was lying) so I guess we'll all just have to wait and see. **

**Does anyone wanna wait and see? R&R my loves/Ozians! (sorry for the shitty author's note, but eh,) And with that last thang, I bid you all adieu! -Gillies**


	2. Chapter 2

Moist warmth crackled underneath her cheek, smothering her skin with an itchy unease. Something familiar and yet beyond her roared in her ears, increasing in volume as she swam up, up, up, continuously rousing her from solid unconsciousness. Her eyebrows furrowed in confusion, lines breaking out in the smooth canvas of her forehead and on the sides of her eyes, and she sucked in a breath. Her throat seized, her body wrecked with terrible spasms and she lifted herself up, gagging on something thick and slimy and painful. (thE D?)

Her back arched like a stretching cat, her stomach clenching and pulsing violently and she hacked, vomiting bile and salt water out on to the white sand in front of her. She gasped, pressing a hand against her belly, her eyes watered from her lapse of panic. When her breathing regulated the sick baker spat out the sour, burning taste in her mouth, twisting her lips in disgust as she sat back on her legs, hunched still as if she feared she'd fall flat on her face if she straightened out too much.

The sun was on her face, brightening up the up-most ridges of her cheeks and forcing her to squint. Little wafts of breeze that blew from the ocean front were icy cold, and though the light was heating up her skin Mrs. Lovett shivered inconsolably.

That was how Sweeney found her: crouched on the beach beside a puddle of squelchy throw-up, tears rolling down her paled face and the entire left side of her head and most of her dress covered in grit. He forced himself to slow down from his run when he saw her sitting just around the bend of land, a suppressed sigh hissing through his teeth.

Coming up beside her, Sweeney bent down and grabbed her arm, hoisting her up on to her stumbling feet. Swiping at the grime on her face, her head swinging around in surprise, she jolted in his grasp and then seemed to almost deflate, letting him pull her off the uncomfortable shape she'd made in the wet beach. Her arms shot out and encircled his waist, her head burrowing into his chest.

"Oh, Mr. T! Yer alive!" Mrs. Lovett wailed, tightening her hold when he pushed feebly at her shoulder, willing her to remove herself from his person. Hugging wasn't one of the few things Sweeney was accustomed to doing – especially with the petite pie baker. "Wh – _are _you 'live? Are we dead, Mr. T? 'ave we died? _Drowned, _no less?"

A startled gasp ripped out of her, and she all but threw herself away from him, turning in wild circles. "Shit – where's Toby?! Oh no," Her breath caught against the thorns of her teeth, and she paused facing the vast sea that rolled from the post-winds of the storm.

The ship could still be seen in the close horizon, but there was nothing left to really look upon but the moor and tons of driftwood in the surrounding crystal waters. A few crates lay overturned on the beach a little ways away and some still bobbed in the water, indistinctive writing smeared down their faces. But no Tobias the Swimmer in sight. There seemed to be no survivors besides her and him, and worst than their lonesome, they were shipwrecked, lost on a blotch of land in the far corner of someone's map.

"He might be on the island. We don't know." Sweeney rumbled behind her when she didn't move away from staring out at the submerged wreckage.

The island – an idyllic, charming, beautiful, isolated and remote and oddly foreboding island in the middle of ocean - was possibly tons of kilometers off the God-given route to America. They had no hope of rescue, in short.

"Mr. T, oh, I'm so sorry – _Johanna _-"

"Hush pet," Sweeney murmured, his hand twitching from some resisted desire, and he jerked his head to the side: let's go this way.

Johanna shot up off a rock that sat jutted out from the edge of the treeline, like the loose fingernail of the thick jungle in the immediate back. Anthony was on the ground, his legs crossed and his shirt soaked. Her pretty face was alit with shock, and she tripped over to where Mr. Todd was just coming around the island, the arm of a bent Mrs. Lovett wrapped around his shoulders.

"Mrs. Lovett!" She lightly touched the pie baker's arm, shaking with worry. When the only response she managed from the exhausted little woman was a dismissive wave, Johanna looked up at Sweeney. "Is she alright?"

The trees and bushes rustled loudly next to Anthony, and before Sweeney could conjure up a satisfactory reply to his daughter from his limited lexicon, a man – whom the demon instantly recognized, by the purpled wallop of a bruise that imbrued his face, as the captain of the, now deceased, Bountiful – stepped out of the darkness. The captain was buttoning up his trousers, his enrapt attention on what lay behind him in the ominous curtain of shadows.

"Oi, I found -" The two eldest men caught eyeful of one another, and the breeze paused, stiffening from male aggression. The captain sniffed, his hooked nose breaking out in lines, and he turned to look down at Anthony. "Hey lad,"

Anthony stood up, planting his feet rigidly and saluting. "Yes, cap'n?"

The captain looked pleased, pocketing his meaty hands and straightening his back. All the while Johanna helped lead Mrs. Lovett to the jagged sitting stone, the baker in between the bird and her father. "I foun' a lake, small expanse of water -"

"What good does that do?" Sweeney muttered, crossing his arms from where he stood behind Anthony, on the opposite side of the rock. Johanna glanced at the glowering barber, and then smiled apologetically at the reddening captain.

"...Despite his attitude, I'm afraid Mr. Todd has a point, sir." She went over to Anthony's side, who was still pressing the outerior of his hand to his forehead. "We're surrounded by water." The yellow lady picked her words as carefully as she had picked her way across the shaded beach.

The captain sneered, shifting on his feet. "I know that lassie," He snapped, and barber clenched his fists. "But this water isn't like _that _water – tis fresh water."

The blond couple 'ooh'ed in comprehension, glancing sideways at one another, then Johanna turned sheepish, hanging her head a tad. "I see. Well, now that you've mentioned it, I am rather thirsty." She was parched, her tongue swelled uncomfortably by the mere thought of something to drink. Mrs. Lovett could probably do for some water too, she thought.

"Yer bet your little skivvies you're thirsty – salt does that too yah, I would know. I'm a sailor." The captain bared his teeth, attempting to appear intimidating. Perhaps, considering the welt on his face, he succeeded.

* * *

"But _are _you fine?"

The trees shredded up the sunlight in a terribly ruthless way, allowing only the smallest blades and soft strips with unexpected determination to fight their way through to shine down on her sunken face. The wind blew with distant hisses, shaking the peaceful painting of the overhanging leaves until they danced with energy she longed to harbor. She closed her eyes to the swaying above her, breathing out against the breeze that curled through her hair and cooled the sweat on her neck and breast. The outline of the beach grew peaceful when devoid of the quarrelsome guys, the air sweet and fragrant.

Oh wait.

Mrs. Lovett turned her head to the side, opening her eyes and blinking innocently at her younger. She smiled, fatigued, and reached out to clasp hands with Johanna's sweat soaked palm. "I am. Don't you worry yer little 'ead over an old bat like me, my joy, m' just a little…" A little...what? "Tired."

"I'm sure Toby is alive - a-and faring quite well, that is, of course." Johanna nibbled her lip, staring up at the numb stature, the alabaster stone embodiment of the mother she's always dreamt of. The sheer honesty in the tiny bird's eye soothed the distraught baker more than half the assumptions ever could.

The roof of green and red and blue shivered in the wind, parting and letting a harsh slash of sunlight break through. It ignited yellow hair to burn like blood, the shimmering heat melting her scalp and rubbing at the raw flesh until it bled in long, curled streams of rich beauty. The brown eyes turned upon her blinked, lashes white and skin white, the sunken-in crevices from exhaustion donning her taunt skin like withered bruises, hindering and stomach-twisting and so familiar. As the baker pulled her hand away, her lips tightened in a sort of bitter reaction to the thoughts that ran through her head in that split second of dayshine.

_Benjamin Barker's daughter, she is._ Three cubic feet of bone and blood and meat, all that she knew and loved, sat in an ocean of life, yellow. She saw into the years that had passed with the snap of cruel fingers. She remembered her happiness like the fleeting touch of a lover on her malnourished cheek. All she ever loved and knew sitting on a white blanket, holding her; then when the curtain of water-paint vegetation fastened securely back in its limp façade of a shield, it was Lucy Barker who stared back her.

"'He might be on the island,'" Mrs. Lovett repeated, swallowing back a gurgle of heart-string vomit that welled up in her throat canal; it pressed against her esophagus with the aggression of a military of bees and with the suddenness of a tide. "We jus' don't know."

The bushes rustled behind them, and from the spangled shadows re-emerged the men.

"I tol' you, see whose wrong now, _bud_? I knew what I sees when I see it!" the captain bellowed, lifting a pudgy fist to point accusingly at Sweeney as he swaggered over to where Mrs. Lovett sat. Anthony's fingers skimmed through Johanna's hair, gently combing through sand and lenient knots. Johanna twisted around, grabbing his hand and hoisting herself up out of the grove she'd dug into the beach.

"Is it true?" She whispered to her love, sensually - if not hastily - kneading his skin on the back of his hand to get the goods faster. Sweeney nodded and the sailor 'yes'ed. And "Of course it is, you take me for a liar, girl?" the captain cavilled. Mrs. Lovett snapped out of her melancholy trance long enough to reprimand the abrasive man on his manners towards her finch, then he grovelled, embarrassed.

The captain muttered his apologies to the bird as he shuffled by, stalking off to take another piss.

"How is Mrs. Lovett, Johanna?" Anthony asked, and the girl gained both the sailor's and the demon barber's attention: this was an important question, she knew.

Taking a short breath, the blond smiled wearily and shrugged her delicate shoulders. "She is... Completely out of it," Johanna confided quietly, her mood dampened sweetly. "The loss of a child is always hard, always, and it seems even Mrs. Lovett is no exception - despite her lack of actual paternal connection towards Toby."

"Tobias was very close to her, it's true." Anthony mumbled, sending half-glances in the hunched-over baker's direction. "I hadn't really talked to either of them in London, but the affection was there, plain and clear."

Sweeney glared at Anthony, the scepticism softening with each blink of his odd eye.

Johanna bit her lip, her hands folding together on her stomach. "Does anyone have any idea on Toby's whereabouts?" She whispered, her desperate words coming out in a hiss, and she leaned in close.

"At the bottom of the ocean I suspect." Sweeney grumbled, clasping his hands behind his back and snorting derisively. "Stupid boy," He cursed.

Abruptly Mrs. Lovett stood up, brushing off the back of her skirts, her lips pulled in a tight line. When she looked over her shoulder, confiding in the barber with a saturnine ''I'll be back la'er," her skin looked sallow and pitted, like a festering corpse bleaching in the sun.

The beach spread out before her with just a couple of steps; white light beat down with odious vigour, drying her lips and drying the sandy path she created, unshod and gritty. Mrs. Lovett wrapped her arms around herself then dropped them again, her bones chilled despite the heat. _My Toby... _She closed her eyes, trotting blindly, sorrow surging.

_Be alive, Toby. Be without harm._

Acidic fingers encircled her brittle wrist - a flame from the stars pulling her to the sky - a fiery fiend dragging her to hell - and she was jostled back, wobbling in a tight circle to face her wicked one.

"Wha' - what d'you want, Mr. T?" Her voice was breathless and languid, even as she willed it to show the bubbling fervour that brewed in her stomach.

"What are you doing?" He demanded, bristling like a petulant wolf-pup.

"I'm going for _a walk_," The pie baker yanked her arm away, stumbling a step or two before she puffed out her chest, her face made ugly from contempt. She all but spat in his face, "Leave me alone," before she trudged off around the corner of the island, her backside swallowed up by the shimmering waves of heat off the little knolls of sand.

By the time she was as far away as she needed to be, her legs ached and hurt from her strong slow striding, and her face was red and aflame from tears of lava. Mrs. Lovett choked on her sobbing, a giant wet wad of emotion lodged tight inside her. She couldn't have stood the sight of the Bountiful's carcass, out against the horizon like a black rip in her heart; so she'd turned her back on the ocean and flung herself into the jungle, tripping over roots and swatting away vines, filling her lungs with the poignant stench of trees and dirt, and animal.

Her feet hooked underneath a green bone, her sweat-sleeked knees collapsing, and she sank to the forest floor with a moist _hmph_, trying to breathe around the exhausted desperation that webbed within. She coiled into herself, a cascade of red hair tumbling over her eyes and her fists clinging to the moss underfoot, clinging because the world was upside-down and she didn't want to fall. And as well as she could she caught her breath.

She had lost her Toby.

She had lost her boy. Her child. Her babe. Tobias the Knight.

The empty promises of the past echoed in her head like the chime of distant ghost bells, as salted rivers curled around her face, down her cheeks, neck, the curve of her nose. Quietly, her voice, prostrate with an unspeakable grief in the hollow behind her teeth, emerged from her quaking lips a butterfly of self-loathing.

_"Nothing's gonna harm you,_

_not while I'm around,_

_Nothing's gonna harm you, darlin'..."_

* * *

Anthony reached forwards and clasped hands with her. Johanna smiled thinly at him and let him pull her closer. Softly, a feather-light touch against her senses, he kissed her cheek. "And how has my lady been fairing?" He asked, his words lancing through her heart despite their anxiously muffled utterance.

She sniffled suddenly, unwinding an arm from his neck to wipe at sourly budding tears. "Quite fine, my love. And I hope you are the same?" Soft spoken formalities came back to her, formalities and etiquette learned in years past, and she shared a tender look with the sailor whom held her fastly ardent heart. His love-sick countenance was one she had memorized. Her soft lips and her gentle hands were ones he felt he could never live without.

"Oh yes... Never mind our uh - tragic situation, I don't remember _ever_ being better." Anthony whispered.

Johanna's eyes widened, her stomach swelling from a sudden inclinal shift within her. Up until now she had vowed to never, never divulge in Anthony the many, gruesome events and sights she had witnessed months ago, bloody affairs she had come to terms with the moment her wrong-doer had boarded the same boat as her.

How could she - the caged finch fluttering nervously inside her prison, a dark chest, and then in she had fluttered in the arms of her true love, the little girl afraid of her own tiny shadow - was a cold-hearted accomplice to something as foul as murder. She could not reveal to Anthony the demon he saved from the cold hateful waters, could not let her dearest loss a friend...

And, though as she stayed close to him and let him warm her with his endless sky of affection, she was sadly unsure if he would believe her.

Not until now has she ever thought twice on her one and single secret remaining just that. Not until...

Anthony's delicate forehead creased, folding beneath the weight of worry. His fingers were caressing her cheeks before he could stop himself, and he urged her to loosen her tongue and explain her abruptly dampened mood. Her gaze flickered, sliding back to him as if she had drifted off to wonder at the fabrication of life and the universe itself, as if the answer lie just over his jacketed shoulder. "Johanna?"

"Ant'ony...'' Her voice whined with need, her pretty youthful face scrunching with distress. She had never imagined this moment would come, not in any of her numerous nights laying awake in her damask asylum dreaming of what her life could be like, should be like, what she'd like it to be like. Could she do it?

Oh, she had too. He deserved to know - she deserved an honest, true relationship. She had to tell him. "I- " It had to be done. He had to know. "_Ant'ony_ -" ...But...

''Can't find her." A darkness crept up from behind them, slinking out of the island trees and withering in the sun like a creature of the night. The blonde pair twisted in odd ways to see it, and were greeted by a defeated Sweeney Todd.

His eyes glanced over as if he sensed something important had been transpiring on the beach and realized with a twitch of his face he'd severed it by his rude arrival. He stiffened in sharp awareness, his throat closing in embarrassment and he looked down like a scolded animal.

He hummed lowly, deep within his breast, as he contemplated apologizing. But instead, he decided on out-right backing away and Sweeney slipped back through the lenient wall of greeness.

With his attitude one of dejected humiliation, he did not once look round. Had he done so he would have seen the lone pair of simian tawny eyes peering through the upper-brush of the darkening tree, watching silent as a ghost, blinking, disappearing like a whisper in the night.

Sweeney's lankly legs loped him to the newly-found watering hole, following the skinny rivulet that led from the rippling crystal pool to the waving, murderous ocean and vice-versa. The barber ran a hand through his hair - recoiling his fingers immediately as his head was thick and heavy with sweat and grease.

He growled faintly in disgust, smearing away the dirt on his hip. His once silky trousers were beginning to solidify and feel cardboard-like. His shirt was ripped underneath his arm, right on top of the apex of it and his shoulder. His suspenders and cravat were lost to him when the unreliable ship had broken apart under foot.

The sound of cascading water beat against his temples, starting up a choir of throbbing inside his head to the unplaceable beat the stout fall created as it hit constantly and continuously against the inlet. It was just coming into view now. A couple more footsteps and he would be there, facing the double-set staircase of shaved rock and smoothed stone, a rush of white clouds speeding down to the bubbling cauldron with the blue bottom and lush lining of drowned grass. A few more steps. Twigs snapped disdainfully under his boots, feeble limbs reaching out to scratch warningly at his face and wrists, outer thighs; a picket of bracken and thorn-bush shaking and hissing at him as he bulled forward. He dropped a veiny hand on his belt holster for -

Sweeney froze. His razors.

* * *

"What were you going to say?"

"Nothing, Ant'ony."

* * *

Off in the thickets of the island the roar and the screaming of shadowed beasts shook through the trees, their ensemble voices flying like tropical birds over the land in a shock-wave. It took a moment for the caved-in baker to hear the threat in the shrill voices passing overhead, and it took even longer for her to straighten out her curled neck. Her red eyes flickered with silent dis-ease from tree-top to tree-top, her heart frozen until the boom of song reached the sea well behind her; only then did it leap into a frantic dance, a doe restricted underneath tight skin.

But the fluttering hoof-beats thumping in her chest weren't from fear.

The breath she never possessed left her, the heavy cloak of motherly morose sliding off her shoulders for the seconds coloured light passed across her face. Rainbows swirling leisurely, flashing and twinkling and morphing; triangles of opalescence, slashes of azure, wounds of vermilion, crooked squares of verdigris, lacerated bits of salmon, windmills of hazel, then mud, the hazel again; scarlets, emeralds, ambers to golds, sapphire to water, sapphire to water, shades of cerise, blades of olive greens, wisps of flaxen, amethyst, blue-violet, indigo, periwinkle, sepia;

bottle upon bottle upon pieces of shattered glass hung suspended from the embracing arms of the trees, twisting and spinning in a breath of life unfelt on her diamond-blazed skin. Millions, trillions of hues and stains changing on her drained flesh by the ever shifting cuts of light.

She sat back on her calves, the tears that roll down her cheeks a different colour as the colour it was a millisecond ago, her brown eyes no longer brown but dirty white, then rosy pink, then brown once again. Moving birthmarks of the kaleidoscopic patchwork slid without direction along the floor, along the contours of her body, along the grove; a heaven for hanging bottles.

* * *

Johanna's jaw dropped, and she slid past as Anthony was making a big show of holding the sharp coiling creepers out of her way.

"See? The captain wasn't lying when he said... He's not all that bad of a guy, Jo, I don't know why you dislike him so much." Anthony came up beside her, having to rise his voice and lean in close for her to hear him over the noise of the sturdy, rotund waterfall. Johanna faced her boy sailor, her excited smile weeping off her countenance. Solemnity transfiguring her face into marble. Hatred burned in her eyes before the fire was smothered by a grey boulder of requited love.

"I don't know either, my darling." She said, swallowing back her fuse before she exploded at the wrong person. Then, almost to herself she mumbled, "Don't 'ave such a great feeling about him, is all..."

She hadn't even realized her head had dipped, her chin nearing her chest with her youthful eyes squinted in deep thought, until Anthony's feet stepped into her view and his warm hands cupped her cheeks. She straightened to see his calm, assuring face, smooth from adoration. "Come now, my sharp-eyed, blonde kitten... Just give him a chance, love... I'm sure he's really - really nice... Underneath it all, I guess..."

Johanna pouted, brushing his hands off her to grab hold of both his hands and stare determinedly up at him. "Ant'ony. I've never gotten underneath."

* * *

Legs stepped in front of her, casting a long shadow down upon her and obscuring her view of the spinning glass draped from the trees. The captain knelt and cupped her chin in his palm, his eyes skimming over her pouted lips. "I found you," He sang, a charming smile spreading underneath his greying whiskers.

Mrs. Lovett pulled her head out of his grasp, straightening up into a crouch. "Wot?" She breathed. Her forehead rumpled from her confusion.

The captain held out his hand, and only when she took it did he answer, "Johanna sent tha' other fella ta go look for you when you didn't come back, and Anthony -" The dark hate that seeped in his voice as he muttered 'that other fellow' said loud and clear of whom he was referring too.

"'is name's Mr. Todd,"

"Wha' - oh, right, uh sorry... Anyway, the lad sent _me _out - 'e knew I would 'ave a bet'er chance a' findin' you than the other fella -"

"Todd," She corrected again, her voice disinterested. Mrs. Lovett swiped crudely at her eyes, stopping her attempts to look somewhat presentable when the captain remained quiet, giving her a weird look. She blinked innocently at him, snapping a little harshly, "What?! What're you lookin' at?"

A whistle of wind blew through the small copse, the bottle pediments clinked against one another and flickered like oil lamps. The captain lifted a hand when she was distracted by the beauty behind him, and, with a concentrated squint, plucked a piece of moss off the crown of her hair. "Why is it you persist to do that?" He asked, almost to himself.

She stared back at him, a hundred explanations going through her head, some sincere and some snarky, but none traveled far enough for her to be able to open her mouth and have coherent wordings come forth into the world. So instead of standing there with her jaw hung slack like an asinine fool, she shrugged half-heartedly and stepped around him, throwing a demand over her shoulder, "Help me wit' this, love."

She stretched to her tip-toes, her arms reaching and her fingers grabbing onto cool glass; a hand slinked up over her head, folding over hers on top of the bottle, and pulling down. The dirtied, yellowed string that tied the smoothly blown wine flagon to the branch far out of touch, snapped without much resistance, and dropped its precious cargo into Mrs. Lovett's sweaty grip.

"Are you sendin' a message out t' sea?" The captain jibbed, snickering and looping her waist with his arm. Mrs. Lovett glanced up at him, with the hefty glass warming in her fist and her lips pursed.

"Yeah I am."

* * *

The jungle enclosed tightly around him, heat radiating off the moist bark of the trees and rising from the ground like wafts of the dirt's breath climbing up his legs. Had he not seen that stump before? Surely he had passed that hanging vine at least four times now. Wasn't that dip in the forest-floor agonizingly familiar?

"_Would you mind terribly looking for Mrs. Lovett?_" His little dove had asked of him - would he mind _terribly_? Sweeney seethed, shaking his head as he stumbled over rotten roots as thick as his forearms and ducked around dense curtains of spiky webs. _Yes_! He did bloody mind terribly. If only he could have been able to say no to his sweet child, if only she hadn't been the one to ask it of him.

If only that stupid - that _stupid_...

_If only that stupid woman hadn't gone off in such a fit_, Sweeney thought, _I wouldn't be out here getting ate by God-knows what._

He hated this bloody island.

* * *

A yearning spread of wave crawled across the whitened sand; it reached out to swell in between and around her toes to cause her discomfit. The low-hung blood-red sun cast vivid reflections into the clouds, bleeding out into the waters to make a melting pot of rubies, gleaming and sprinkled like sequins across the ocean's surface.

Dreadful winds nipped at her skin and she trembled with sweat collecting behind her ears, wishing the cold could be appreciated after the stifling day. The glass bottle sat slanted in the sand beside her bare feet, glinting a star of dying sunlight. Keeping its head just out of water was the ship, but Mrs. Lovett's eyes stayed on its darkened outline for only a blink before she looked on, her hands on her hips.

She continued to search for whatever it was she was searching so desperately for, scanning the earth's limit for that one thing...

Insanity, she whispered. Mrs. Lovett wasn't going to find him and she knew so, but that didn't seem enough to stop the thumping orchestra inside her, nor did it see fit to make pause in her gazing. And as she stared out into the churning blue void of past sins it was at that moment she felt she could begin to walk forward and never stop, not until millions and millions of layers of sea water sat on top her head, filling her up with icy peace. Without a care or thought in the world, she could do it, she could.

And what conscience left within her could stop her?

Was not her inner-rationality already butchered beyond repair by the meat cleaver held tightly on one end by a strong sure hand, the other end ripping through the flesh and bone of dead Londoners? Sawing through the flesh and bone of whom by her own way of nightly retribution were quite possibly - prob'ly - more th'n likely - just as if not viler than she?

Had that single, repeated deed not eroded away the strength of her willingness, her justification to live? Those of whom were destined - the phrase now disgusted her - to never again see the yellow faces of their children, their lovers; had their broken jugulars not sentenced her to Godless indifference? To the most final state of degradation wherein she had only just seen it beneath her fingernails, black and shameful, and had only smelt the decadent of her moral plate in her sore-riddled scalp and in her mouth-way defecation earlier past...

She was damned because she was vain, and she was too beautiful and too loved and too selfish to risk something that now seemed so fruitless. Her own heart-beat, no matter how ugly and rotten it had always been, was far more important than that of one, singular, small, innocent soul, wasn't it?

And she knew it was by her fingers that had frozen in the cold - fingers that could have stayed true and perhaps warm from her heart, could have grabbed hold of the boy sinking just under her before it was too late, before she let herself morph into a hideous creature of cowardice that had left him sinking just beneath her to swim blindly towards the unreachable horizon, a shivering, crude monster full of the running gasoline of self-survival; she knew it was the impalpable instinct to _live, _despite all else, everything to be lost for the few more hours of breath gained, that had done her over.

This thought was like a thousand voices susurrating inside her head and in her heart: do it. See how you've failed? Do it now.

She wouldn't, but she could. And maybe that was all that mattered.

Now she felt empty. A lonely vessel worth not of even the glare of the sun that would come no matter what she felt. In some sick, mutilated half-thought she found it would be an adequate salvation: her a drowning mother in search for her seamless child in liquefied winters.

"Oi, look wha' I foun'!" The captain's voice yelled over the drone of the ocean's stormy wailing, and she turned to see him shovelling his fingers into a brown parcel unwrapped in his palm, scooping its contents out and slurping it into his mouth.

Mrs. Lovett glanced one last time out at the floating boxes and the floating drift as she tepidly swept over to face the general direction of the captain, curiosity thus further pushing her towards him. "What?"

The captain lifted his eyes, bits of watery food smudging the lower, centred area of his cheeks and he on high alert, as if he feared she would snatch away his snack. He hummed then, straightening up his back and shrugging. "Foun' somethin' to eat - oh, an' those crates there 'ave some other stuff innit too." His eyebrows wiggled provocatively, but his reason was not made clear to her until later that evening.

The captain crumpled up the paper into a ball and tossed it into the sea, wiping off his face and turning to present the beached items. "See," He began, pulling something out of the box. "'Ere's a emergency kit, couple a blankets, some more food, a...Oh, here babe,"

The captain wrung his upper half around and handed her a small jar of ink, and a pen, shrugging off the pet name was if it were nothing. "For yer...Note."

Mrs. Lovett stared blankly at the spotted feather held erect in his deft fingers, before a smile cracked her lips. She carefully took the things from his hand, glancing up at him from under her eyelashes. "Thanks, dearie."

They stayed on the beach scavenging until it grew almost too dark to see where the sea begin and where the sand ended. And it wasn't long into their digging and prying that he presented a single bottle of cheap wine, the skin of it still lightly glazed with sea sweat. He had stepped up to her and smirked, waving the enticing alcohol in front of her face, and considering the times, who was she to deny a little sip of preservation? It would be nice to forget and to feel something good - something other than ever-going pain and numbness - slathering her interior.

The entire evening they'd joked and chit-chatted away once Mrs. Lovett was thoroughly and effectively drunk, and he with his dead ship's alcohol helped the pie baker blank out her misery for the while; her first laughs and first genuine smiles caused by the swoon-inducing orator and his infectious cackles.

When he finally suggested they head back to the others his underarm were loaded with pieces of dry wood and twigs and in his hands was a sack full of a few essentials. They left the wine casket, drained and sandy, beside the crates to be unrecalled of by the morrow.

Mrs. Lovett walked close beside him, only the bottle and materials she'll use to write her message for the Goddess of the sea or who the fuck ever, and her deliberately inebriated body burdening her stride. Those small items and too the obligation she felt but didn't mind to stay in time with the captain and his huffy-puffy shuffling.

"I could -" He sucked in air, "y'cou'd _help_, you know love." He wheezed, and a throat of laughter poured out of her, wrecking her chest in spasms as he stumbled and dropped his baggage onto the ground.

He sent her a dirty look, the sides of his lips quivering from repressed chuckles. He growled in feigned hatred, standing up and watching her reel herself in out of the strong tides of drunkish amusement. "Nasty girl, you are."

Mrs. Lovett pouted, shaking and snorting ungracefully in her slow descent from cloud-nine to calm waters. "Oh come now, baby, don't cry."

The captain moved a breath away from her, pressing a hand to his lower back with a wince on his handsome face. "I coulda hurt myself. Coulda pulled m' back or somethin' and you're wantin' me ta '_come now_'?" He muttered, his voice silky; his free hand lifted and brushed a curl off her shoulder, lightly scratching her skin.

Mrs. Lovett beamed pink-faced up at him, letting his silence become mirrored by her own; letting him lean in forwards and press a kiss against her lips, with the stars shining in the grey sky above them.

She had to remind herself to close her eyes, and was slightly saddened when she felt nothing as he slipped his thick clumsy tongue into her mouth. And though nothing fluttered in her stomach and though her heart stayed beating the same sweet monotone-ism, and though her head dizzied not, she smirked all the same when he pulled away and hooked her arm with his to lead her back to the others.

"You forgot the stuff," She reminded him, and burst in slightly-condescending guffaws when he stopped short-handed, a strangled gasp escaping him. "Oh, you silly man!"

* * *

Around the sitting rock was nothing but billows, indents and tills of sand where tread upon tread of feet had trod in the earlier sunlight. The captain was fazed not by the empty beach and before she could utter a hesitation, or inquire lazily where the hell everyone was, he dove them in to the somberly watchful eye of vine and leaf. A trail was beginning to form, slashing through the undergrowth, blotched and smeared with shadows and night-time air.

"Don' worry, I betcha they're up 'ere. By the water." The captain rasped, using a skinny tree trunk to help hoist him over the little grassy hill.

"Oh well, that's good. Ugh," Mrs. Lovett ran her free hand through her matted hair, shaking her drowsy head. She giggled in a sharp, hateful sort of way. "Y'know me an' Mr. T used ta drink together all th' time. 'e loved 'is gin, and well, I loved givin' 'im what 'e loved..."

_Uh, save fo' his bleedin' prostitute wife, of course._

"We was bests of friends, didja know that love? prob'ly 'ates me now, after I snapped at him this...whenever it was I snapped at 'im."

"Th' waterfall makes you near deaf, babe." the captain continued suddenly, as if he had heard none of her rambling, and he glanced over his shoulder at her body before he bee-lined them off the fresh pathway; sending them stumbling half-blind through the untouched and firm jungle. "there's a more quieter place over here; I found it just before I foun' the water."

"Me and Sween's used t' - to - where y' taking me?" Mrs. Lovett's brow furrowed, and he didn't need to look over his shoulder to know it did.

"Jus'... Here."

They emerged through a torn thicket into a no-longer virginal meadow; stained by mankind, for there were on the soft ground flowers stomped in and broken staffs of grass all around her. The trees on the far end of the oval-shaped field had a little mountain - she only figured it to be small, because surely they were supposed to be bigger than that?! - keeping the downing sun off the island. It was dreadfully silent, and the silence beat against her like a bludgeon in her ears. Mrs. Lovett looked at the captain.

She struggled her hand out of his grip. "No, wait. We shouldn't be leavin' Johanna an' Ant'ony an' Mr. T there. Go get 'em."

The captain's face contorted with brashly disappointed anger and for the briefest of seconds she thought he'd raise a hand to her - or worse, disobey her - but something seemed to - _click_ - click in his eyes and he winked as if nothing but happy placidity had stormed in his face. Then he vanished into the growing darkness.

The shaky baker waited, 2 minutes, 5 minutes, 6 minutes, 11 minutes... the unfathomable weighed down on her from all sides, like a rock forcing itself through her entrails by its devotion to gravity. And her eyes darted to and fro as she could feel she wasn't entirely alone in the sea of tall beige vegetation and she knew she wouldn't be able to withstand the predator sitting, stalking in the trees above her head.

Mrs. Lovett crossed her arms tight beneath her bust, her dress rough under her palms, and some how this acquired stance made her feel stronger.

Hands clamped down on her and she screamed, nearly falling forwards when her pursuer turned her around, eager to see the fright in her eyes when it mangled her and violated her -

"Oh, sweet Jesus Mr. Todd!" The rising moon just crept over the island and ignited jagged lines of silver through his hair, his hands warming on her shoulders as he gave her a small shake, rattling her until breathing came easy. "Oh, hi darlin'. Gave me a down-right panic ya did."

"Where were you?" His lapse of just-barely-visible concern washed away, and his voice was one of an offended authority figure. He had all but forgot of his missing razors, once the captain had boisterously exclaimed of the baker's well-being not too long ago.

Any sign of emotion dripped off like hot wax, down her china-doll face to disappear like a stone in the ocean, and beneath it all was nothing but wide-eyed scrutiny. Mrs. Lovett blithely disregarded his withdrawn insistence in that callously insouciant way she had about herself. "I just don't know, love."

Just before he went to throttle her, a cadence of rustling emitted from behind him and out came the rest of the island's occupants. Johanna pulled Anthony along with her and the bird all but elbowed her father out of the way to submerge the baker in conversation. From the look on his face she might as well have knocked him in the unmentionables.

"Mrs. Lovett! I was worried sick for you, are you -" Johanna paused. "...Are you well?"

The older woman nodded, smiling sickly-sweet as she enclosed the petite blond in a crushing hug.

"Oh yes, much well."

"Ant'ony and I -"

"Say my Joy," Mrs. Lovett peeped in, playing, over affectionately, with the girl's hair. "You an' Ant'ony 'ave been spendin' an _awful lot of time_ together, eh love?"

The pie baker could see Anthony trying to wriggle away from the two females in the corner of her eye, and finally after Johanna regained herself out of her shocked trance she let go of her sailor and pursed her pretty little lips. She could tell he was a bit disappointed on how easily his love released him, and he stalked away to help the captain make a fire near the edge of the clearing he'd lead them all into. Behind her she felt Sweeney tense up, and a soft bell chimed in her head.

_Watch it_. It hissed in her ear, just as he did a moment later. Oh, if only she could help herself!

"Mrs. Lovett, what're you trying to say?" The ice in the bird's voice reminded her so much of her father, and it physically pained her to refrain from mentioning to her coveted one of how alike the two were. In her weakened state she almost allowed herself to give into the urge, as it was much easier than keeping secrets, but luckily she heard herself continue the conversation, and her own voice distracted her.

"Now, I ain't sayin' nothin', but..." Mrs. Lovett wiggled her eyebrows suggestively. Something seemed to dawn in the barber's expression over her shoulder, as if he had just realized some horrible truth. In a way he had. "If you get my drift, sweetlin'."

His hand yanked her backwards, causing and preventing her fall. When she recoiled in fear, cornered by the demon and his lamb, he sneered, "Yes _Mrs. Lovett_, what's yer meaning by all that?" _You're drunk, Mrs. Lovett_, he roared to her in his head.

She whimpered, having always hated when he used that tone of voice with her.

"Nothin', I says so didn't I? Was jus'..." Mrs. Lovett dropped her gaze, looking in the grass for form or structure of help. "Was only playin' games, dear. Jus' playing aroun'."

Well, what did she have to lose?

Mrs. Lovett sighed heavily, crossing her arms defiantly, her chin jutting out as she exclaimed with a scowl, "Jesus Mr. T, you need ta lighten th' fuck up!"

Despite herself Johanna gasped at the language, but was quick to compose herself and spit out her defenses.

"Is that what you call your childish behavior?!" Father and daughter roared in unison. Father continued with, "'_Ligh'ening up', pet_?" as daughter went red and cried, "What Ant'ony and I do or - or th' status of our relationship is _none of your business_. Who do you think you are - my - my _mother_?!" Bullets of tears fell down Johanna's flustered hot face when she spun around and rushed off, but they were black in the night and went tumbling down unseen, much to her dolor pleasure. Lovett and Todd stared after her, silent as a pair of graves, the afterwave of shock seizing their limbs as hostage.

The sobering baker bit her lip, moaning in a low whine, sharing her shame and regret with the island in coiling mist. "fuck-shit-tits, see wot you did Mr. Todd?" She asked, thumping his chest in a thwarted, slow way, and Sweeney caught her wrist before she could use his sturdy body as something to push off of in her precarious journey to apologize.

"No," He seethed, and he didn't look down at her as she looked up at him; she could see his gaze was trained on Anthony's fleeting form as the boy went to comfort his child. "Stay put."

Mrs. Lovett wrung her arm a little to grab hold of Sweeney's hand, and she laced their fingers together. Before she let herself hesitate and see the disgust in his face she pulled them towards the light of the fire, like a couple of wingless moths slithering to the sun. "I'm _sorry_," She whispered to whom ever would listen to a pathetic drunkard.

* * *

**A.N. Chapter two! See, Mr. Todd and Mrs. Lovett are a-okay, Johanna and Anthony are a-okay, Toby is... Toby is a mermaid until further notice, my loves C: Dunno when 'nother chapter will be out, or when any of my other works will be updated, but you know what? I was thinking of doing a teeny-tiny mini fic and it makes me happy just to think about it so #$%^_watch out_(! #$&*. **

**Thank-you to the reviewers and the silent readers and the friend I can always count on for help. thanks to my wonderful taste in music and thanks to Christmas, because why not. Christmas is great.**

**Speaking of which everyone, I hope y'all have a merry Christmas and hella new year - who wants to get drunk with my aunt and grandmommy?! RAISE YOUR HANDS, AND DO NOT SPEAK OUT LOUD UNLESS I'VE CHOSEN YOU. **

**Umm... Pushing Daisies is such a good show, isn't it? I love Pushing Daisies... Flowers are nice... I swear to God I'm not high, just... Sleep deprivation I guess *shrugs because I'm cool and don't care, total bad-ass over here right, shades on and everythin' at 4 in the morning* **

**So. Read&Review, because I love hearing other people's voices besides my own, annnnd because I wanna love you. Like so much. Peace out, sports fans. -Gillies **


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